Pages

Sunday, December 31, 2017

One last update for 2017 for the Yeovil ST52 17 square. The following table shows my targets for the square (set in January, these were on the safe-side and I mostly made all of them), the actual result (which gives 634 as the final tally) and my targets for 2018. So if I can attain most of the targets I should actually get to 1000 for the square in 2018. We shall see!

Secondly I hope that a few more people will give the challenge a go next year. Its not about topping the table (ask a Rochdale fan - longest non-winning streak in the football league, 107 years and counting!) but it really does challenge you to look harder and to try and understand more about wildlife. This year I added 522 species to my total UK Pan Species List of which 94 came from this square. (that is, nearly a fifth of all my total UK lifers for the year came from one very ordinary 1km square - amazing!)

Finally I plan to continue with this square, which is near where I work, next year. I also plan to do a different square nearer to where I live but plan to post details about that square later.

Sunday, December 24, 2017

There's a whole week left of the year, so I'm just going to keep on and see how far I get. I'm working throughout, even on xmas day itself but will have my usual couple of random days off before the year is up.

These stunners have suddenly started appearing on logs and fallen branches, seems quite incongruous after seeing nothing but micro-fungi, candlesnuff, crusts and the odd bit of Yellow Brain for the past few weeks. Then BANG these big beauties appear, seemingly out of nowhere and in late December too!

Flammulina velutipes - Velvet Shank

I didn't have a clue as to what they were (not very good with macro fungi...) but I had help from a reader of my blog who named them for me. Turns out they're common up here, common everywhere really, I just haven't noticed them before.

So, that's 1001 for the Challenge with hopefully a few more to come too.

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Well, I took my own sweet time but have finally managed to arrive at the thousand species mark. Phew! In the end it came down to two moths that I'd somehow neglected to add to the list (realised that just yesterday) and the 1000th species being a freshwater snail that I found today, hiding amongst a water-weed sample that I'd brought indoors to inspect for micro-algae. It's a pretty grim pic, but please may I present to you Species 1000.... Jenkin's Spire Shell!!!!

Potamopyrgus antipodarum aka Jenkin's Spire Shell

Here's the breakdown as per PSL categories, with the totals alongside the numbers I projected at the start of the year. As can be seen, I was pretty close on some but a long way off the mark with others!

Biggest gains have been algae and plants, largest losses have been seashore stuff and hemiptera, hymenoptera and coleoptera. I find it quite staggering that one solitary Common Frog sums up the entire herp activity that I've encountered this year, just one species of dragonfly seen and absolutely no grasshoppers/crickets whatsoever! The sole orthopteroid encountered was Common Earwig. However, I have had some truly blinding species up here. I'm really not complaining at all, just remarking.

Of the 1000 species recorded up to 19th December, 243 have been lifers. One in every four, roughly. That too I find quite staggering, though in a very pleasing way.

Anyway, the year ain't over yet folks. Ali, you better pull yer finger out or I'll leave you behind before New Years' arrives!

I've resumed blogging again, check out my Skye's the Limit blog for fuller details of recent sightings and shenanigans. It looks likely that I'll be doing this craziness again in 2018, should anybody care to join me............. :)

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

A couple of fungus gnats I pulled off their pins (and, sadly, apart) which had been languishing since September. Both came up trumps - Boletina nitida (which I misidentified and was corrected!) and Mycetophila unitotata. Both, it goes without saying, are new to me.

I'll keep on at this site and see whether it can make 2000. I already have a bunch from last year, including another fungus gnat which is probably new to Scotland but was taken in 2016 (Megophthalmidia crassicornis).

I dont think it was much a challenge doing the same square a second time and I didn't have it in me nor possibly the time, to try and beat the previous attempt.

I still need a challenge however and to move out of my square/comfort zone, so I think I'll do something on the lines that Seth suggested and hit the coast. I need to get my overall pan-list up which is sorely lacking things with marina, maritima etc in the vernacular. Want to here a confession? - I have NEVER done any rockpooling, anywhere! After some thought I'm going to try for 2,000 species but all within VC66 and all within 100m of the high water mark and not venturing more than 100m inland at the Tyne/Wear/Tees estuaries. It could get a bit frustrating not being able to count many of seabirds or cetaceans that are too far out but I've seen most of them I could expect to see so it will not be a big problem. I have no idea whatsoever if it's its possible to get 2,000 or if in fact it will be dead easy but certainly different from what I'm used to.

Monday, December 4, 2017

A very peculiar member of the Muscidae and a bizarre coincidence. Looking at the Muscidae list of most commonly recorded species I hadn't seen I googled some of the "gaps", once of which was this fly. Friday evening I pull a square of plastazote from the shelf and there it is! Sat there ignominiously bypassed by many others since September

Monday, November 13, 2017

Keeping the ball slowly rolling I've been picking up bits of this and that.

A Cladonia found on the edge of a lawn turned out to be C.chlorophaea. Suspected Phaonia pallida from a water trap in Bathing House Wood was confirmed by its underwing setae, and a couple of female Anthomyia turned out to be festiva. All these were preceded by a Field Blewit which was found in the grassy triangle behind Lumsdaine Drive.

Waxwings still not here and no sign of the Hawfinch invasion here yet, though I haven't been out much in the mornings due to other commitments. You never know!

Saturday, October 28, 2017

Its good to see everyone has continued with the challenge and the 1K has been or is ready to be passed by several pan-listers.Its been several months since I have updated anything partly, to be honest, because I got bored but also, I took on a job of surveying the magnesium limestone flora on sections of the A19.... and its a *£$%ing long road. Plus, I've been doing some birding etc in Cyprus. Now I've finished all that and I've got the time, it's gale force winds and not much in the way of daylight but at least it allowed me to start totalling everything up. I've had the moth trap running a couple of times a week but it's been a rush to just id the moths never mind anything else in it. That's the excuses out of the way.

So here is where I'm at and I doubt I'll get more than another 20 by year end. My plan at the start of this was to look at groups I don't normally bother with but it hasn't worked out like that and I think its partly because I did this challenge in 2014. I've been lazy and as I knew where most of the birds, flora and bryophytes were, together with checking the moth trap on a regular basis, it's been too easy.If I had to do it again, and it will n
ot be in the near future, I would pick a different square, preferably one I'm not at all familiar with.Meanwhile, I'll continue this year and then concentrate on my UK (well mainly Durham) Pan-list next year. I've got a whole coastline I've hardly explored.

Friday, October 27, 2017

Well done Ali on your 1,000. I've not been to my patch for weeks so can't see me getting to 1,000 this year. The list below is from an unpublished draft from my last visit. May try and get to 900 before the year end. A few more moth trapping sessions and I'd have reached 1,000 quite comfortably. Oh well, next time....

Monday, October 23, 2017

So after a two week recovery period in Turkey here's a breakdown of how the total was reached. I'll have to think about my favourites later.

It's been fun. Sometimes exciting, sometimes trying. Sometimes amazingly easy, sometimes very difficult. There were plenty surprises and a full quarter of the final tally were species new to me. That might be worth breaking down too.

I'm looking forward to looking at some neglected places and groups to be honest, but it's been a very rewarding exercise. I'll continue to record a few "extra" species for when species on the list prove to be bulls.. erroneous. Now I'm taking it a bit easier birds are starting to finally trickle in, though with winter thrushes being the latest additions maybe that pool is drying up.

Here's how the numbers grew compared with previous annual listing on my local nature reserve

You can see the benefit of working a square close to home/work that's always accessible. The other one is too, to be fair, but I never visited it as consistently.

Here's how the numbers grew by category,

It's not so easy to see how the inverts broke down from this but flies came on strong latterly as moths died away. Moths were severely under-represented really as I only was able to take a serious moth trap on site in the final month. Let's not talk about beetles ... the surge of autumn fungi is pretty obvious though.

Saturday, October 7, 2017

On Thursday a small patch of Nitschkia collapsa was found on (probably) ash, which left only one species to find. I had hoped it might be a passing flock of barnacle geese or a sea eagle or something but in the end it turned out to be another mushroom (fungus 130)!

This morning at 8:13 in in Chapel Wood I came across a few fruit bodies (mushrooms to "normal people"!) of Laccaria laccata, which is the official species #1000!

Because I'm not at work and have no tools, here it is in all its unfocussed, uncropped glory

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Sorry about the repetitive theme but this is what we're working with now! Maybe another bird will show up at lunchtime today. Why not? (edit: another bird did not show up at lunchtime. hella windy too!)

Having found myself briefly locked out as I waited for the missus yesterday night I stumbled into this lovely Lactarius deterrimus on the edge of a garden. It has orange milk, which narrows it down very swiftly!

The fly, Suillia pallida, was only finally sorted out this morning though I had keyed the family and guessed the genus yesterday.

Strangest sighting of the month was, while innocently walking with bins along a country lane in the square, was to be asked by a car driver if I was Pete Forrest! In fact it was Pete Akers who very nearly did this challenge in the adjacent square. Shame he didn't in fact as the coincidence of only c8 participants over the whole of the UK but with 2 of them in adjacent squares would be amazing.

Monday, September 25, 2017

I knew that this part of the year was always going to be a time when fungi would come to the fore and as luck would have it I was able to time a meeting of fungi-bothering friends to coincide with a time of decent fungal diversity starting to emerge. I always hoped to have these guys involved at some point, and it would have been nice if I could have moved the piece along the board a bit more beforehand so that we could have gone over 1000 with a corticioid fungus (the main focus of the study group).

As it was I've moved considerably closer to the goal, with just over 20 species left to grab. It won't happen before end of September now, but it might yet happen before I go on holiday in October.

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

So I finally took a spade to the beach last night to dig up some lugworms. New species are proving a slog at the moment. Birds aren't playing ball though the flies and fungi are sort of ticking along. Two easy ones yesterday though (in ID terms - digging sand is still work!). However the third from yesterday was more interesting.

I decided the other night to give the proper respect to an anthomyiid that I netted at the weekend. Very happy I did too as it's the most northerly record for the species and more than likely new to Scotland - Emmesomyia grisea. As I've been making progress with calypterates it's been bugging me that I've sort of ignored the Anthomyiidae as difficult. Don't get me wrong - they ARE difficult, but they are getting easier. The difficulty lies in their similarity and the consequent nuances of setae organisation (and naming!) that you have to understand to work the keys. Females are still off the list, for the moment at least.

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Well I've pulled my finger out and been doing some recording on the patch for a change. Been quite productive with three from the list below being new to me. Still not much in the way of macro fungi. Nice to have a couple of Odonata on the list finally. I saw one in spring that was probably Southern Hawker but not able to get enough on it to be sure. I didn't get much birding in during the spring so maybe the autumn could be productive for this group as lots of commmon birds are missing from the list.
849. Arctic Tern
850. Hedge Parsley
851. Lesser Burdock
852. Common Knotweed
853. Lycoperdon pratense
854. Migrant Hawker
855. Purple Glasswort
856. Common Fleabane
857. Sea Rocket
858. Common Mallow
859. Coal Tit
860. Marssonina punctiformis
861. Leiobunum blackwalli
862. Opilio canestrini
863. Phyllonorycter corylifoliella
864. Lyonetia clerkella
865. Coenosia pumila
866. Hydrophorus oceanus
867. Coenosia agromyzina
868. Stomoxys calcitrans
869. Common Darter
870. Firecrest
871. Spotted Flycatcher
872. Colletes hederae
873. Aceria macrochela
874. Sargus bipunctatus
875. Uncinula bicornis
876. Chrysolina banksi

Monday, September 18, 2017

After Friday's new Fife fly while searching for moss I found another new Fife fly while searching for moths. This is a cracking little thing and my first in the Keroplatidae. It's only Fife's 2nd recorded one as far s I can see though there must be lots more. Fortunately it did me the honour of attending my MV trap and even more fortunately (for a change) wasn't in the Mycetophilinae so I actually had a key for it!

I bagged some water cress also on Friday and was pleased to confirm the species which I had suspected was really the more common (in the county at least) hybrid.

Sunday turned up some nice mushrooms and all-in-all not a bad weekend, though a September finish seems to be drifting away